Former Tibetan political prisoner Golog Jigme meeting with US Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, on July 26, 2018 at the U.S. Department of State, in Washington, D.C. Photo: TPI

President Dr Lobsang Sangay with the Thank You India Souvenir – A Dharmachakra representing the wheel of Universal Truth, at the press conference at Press Club of India on January 18, 2018. Photo: CTA/DIIR/Tenzin Phende

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Dharamshala: According to a news website in Tibet, Chinese authorities have recently abducted the Tibetan author Tashi Rabten, pen-name Therang, for his alleged involvement in politically subversive activities. On January 25th, Tashi published a book entitled Blood Letter, which his supporters defend as an honest and accurate description of last year's March 10th protests in Tibet. The Chinese government, however, has cut off Blood Letter's distribution and confiscated the copies that have been sold, banning this book due to its "suspicious" political content. They began to monitor the author's daily activities and conduct clandestine interrogations, and now he has disappeared.

Tashi's Blood Letter consists of an introduction (containing 32 articles), and five main sections. These sections are titled, "Note from Hell", "The Melody of the Soul", "My Tibet", "Sacrifice of the Heart", and "Truth's Revenge". In these chapters, and in several articles published in the Chinese Northwest Minorities University annual magazine, Xiar Dong- ri ("The Eastern Conchshell Mountain"), Tashi details the bloodshed that took place on March 10th, 2008, when the Chinese police cracked down harshly on peaceful protesters. He argues that it was not Tibetans, but Chinese officials, who were responsible for the ensuing violence and property destruction.

The first piece of evidence supporting this assertion is an international report by a journalist from Singapore, published at the time of the protests. Additionally, a Burmese lady studying in Lhasa at the time of the protests reports that she witnessed an armed Chinese official changing from Tibetan clothes into his police uniform. Next, all of those so-called protesters who stirred up violence and destroyed public property disappeared directly after the protests. Fourth, the violence was broadcast to the world only by the highly censored Chinese state media.

Tashi's descriptions of Tibetans suffering under a repressive Chinese regime, and his expressions of his love for and loyalty to the Tibetan nation and culture, brought him under the close inspection of the Chinese government. And now, his whereabouts are unknown.